Maxime Vachier-Lagrave was born in Nogent-sur-Marne, just outside of Paris. A genuine prodigy, he became the then second-youngest grandmaster in the world in 2005, at the age of 14 years 4 months (Magnus Carlsen was the youngest at that time).

Championships

<Age – French Nationals> Vachier-Lagrave won the French U8 championship in 1997, aged 6 with a TPR of 1643. 2 years later in 1999 at the age of 8, he won the U10 Championship with 7/8. The following year in 2000, the 9 year-old won the national U12 championship and in 2002, the then 11 year old took out the U16 French championship. In 2003, the 12 year old was runner up in the U18 championships but won the U20 Championship in 2004, aged 13, with a score of 8/9 and a TPR of 2604.

<Age – World> In 2000, Vachier-Lagrave came =2nd (3rd on count back) in the World U-10 championship with 8½ points out of 11 behind winner Ngoc Truongson Nguyen and alongside Sergey Karjakin (but behind on count back) with a TPR of 2234. The following year, he came 3rd in the World U12 Championship with 8 points out of 11. Two years later in 2003, he came second on count back to Sergei Zhigalko in the U14 World Championship with 9/11. Then in 2005, Vachier-Lagrave finished =2nd behind Aleksandr Lenderman (3rd on countback behind Ian Nepomniachtchi) in the U16 World Championship with 8½ out of 11. All these near misses were a precursor to winning the 48th World Junior Championship (2009) in tiebreak over Sergei Zhigalko. Both had scored 10.5/13 in the tournament. His title win has qualified him for participation in the World Cup (2011).

<World> He competed in the World Cup (2009) and in his first attempt, he reached the fourth round, defeating Yu Shaoteng in round one, Georg Meier in round two, Yu Yangyi in round three before bowing out to the eventual winner of the tournament, Boris Gelfand. He qualified for the World Cup (2011) as 2009 World Junior Champion, although he would have otherwise qualified via his rating. In the first round, he defeated Bangladeshi GM Ziaur Rahman but lost to Chinese GM Bu Xiangzhi in round two in the rapid game tiebreaker after they drew the classical-games mini-match. Vachier-Lagrave was one of the President's nominees to the World Cup (2013), where he defeated US GM Alexander Shabalov in the first round, GM Isan Reynaldo Ortiz Suarez in the second round, his 2nd Cuban opponent, GM Leinier Dominguez Perez in the third round, the previous World Champion Challenger Israeli GM Boris Gelfand in the Round of 16 (round 4), and American-Italian GM Fabiano Caruana in the quarter final (round 5). However, he was eliminated by former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik in the tiebreaker of the semi-final (round 6). Although he did not qualify for the Candidates, his final four placement in the Cup assured his qualification for World Cup 2015 and for the Grand Prix series 2014-15.

Vachier-Lagrave did not play in the first leg of the Grand Prix series 2014-15 played in Baku, but contested the second: FIDE Grand Prix Tashkent (2014). He scored a solid 6/11, placing 4th-7th and accumulating his first points for the series, namely 75 points allocated to each of the place getters who scored 6/11. At the FIDE Grand Prix Tbilisi (2015), he scored 5/11 and accumulated only 40 GP points, thereby eliminating him from contention for the qualifying top 2 places in the series. He played in the final leg of the series, the FIDE Grand Prix Khanty-Mansiysk (2015), where he experienced a severe lapse of form scoring only 3.5/11 to finish last.

2015 started strongly with 2nd at the Tata Steel (2015) with 8.5/13, a half point behind the winner, Carlsen, on tiebreak ahead of Giri, Wesley So and Ding Liren respectively. A mediocre performance at the category 22 Norway Chess (2015) event in June saw him place =5th, with 4/9 (+1 -2 =6). However, he made a spirited return to form by winning the category 19 round robin Biel (2015) tournament, scoring 6.5/10 (+4 =5 -1). This was followed by equal second at the Sinquefield Cup (2015) with 5.5/9, a point behind the winner Levon Aronian. He finished the year with equal first at the London Chess Classic (2015) alongside Carlsen and Giri. He won a playoff against Giri but lost to Carlsen in the second playoff to place second overall in the event.

2016 started with equal first on points alongside Hikaru Nakamura at the Tradewise Gibraltar (2016). However, he was relegated to second prize after he lost the last game of a hard fought rapid/blitz/Armageddon playoff by 2-3.

He won the Category 22 Sinquefield Cup (2017) super-tournament ahead of the world champion and eight other elite grandmasters.

Vachier-Lagrave started playing in the U16 French team championship in 1997. Team results include U16 French championship 2004-2005: first board for NAO Chess Club, 7 points from 7 games, with the NAO-CC winning the club title. The following season, in 2005-06, in the U16 French championship he was again first board for NAO Chess Club, 7 points from 7 games, NAO-CC again earning the title. Also in 2005-2006, playing for the NAO team, he scored 6½ points from 8 games. NAO-CC won the championship for the fourth time in a row.

He is a regular participant in the German Bundesliga and in the French team championships. In 2012, he scored 8/10 in the French Top 12 competition, helping his team Clichy to victory in the event. He played board 1 for Paris in the recent World Cities Team Championship (2012), and helped his team to the round of 16 before being unexpectedly eliminated by Baku. In 2013, he helped his team Clichy to win the French Top 12 league and his Spanish team Sestao Naturgas Energia to win the Spanish CECLUB.

In October 2013, he played top board for Clichy Echecs 92 at the European Club Cup (2013), winning individual silver and helping his team to fourth place in the league. He also played board 3 for Obiettivo Risarcimento in the European Club Cup (2014) and board four for that team in the European Club Cup (2015), again winning individual silver with his team coming in fourth.

fisayo123: Allez Maxime! Please discard my ^^^^ comment (if you're reading this though I believe you know what I meant by that).

Winning the most important closed super-tournament in all of Chess bar the Candidates tournament +3 and unbeaten is an amazing achievement and all your fans including myself are pleased for you. Next up. Getting into the Candidates by any means necessary.

JPi: If this page has been Wesley So's I suspect that after such victory at St Louis, 100 pages will have been wrote in few minutes. Congratulations Maxime! Wonderful games and a due first place in this Super Tournament. Bravo !!

NOTE: You need to pick a username and password to post a reply.
Getting your account takes less than a minute, totally anonymous,
and 100% free--plus, it
entitles you to features otherwise unavailable.
Pick your username now and join the chessgames community!
If you already have an account, you should
login now.

Please observe our posting guidelines:

No obscene, racist, sexist, or profane language.

No spamming, advertising, or duplicating posts.

No personal attacks against other members.

Nothing in violation of United States law.

No posting personal information of members.

See something that violates our rules? Blow the whistle and inform an administrator.

NOTE: Keep all discussion on the topic of this page.
This forum is for this specific player and nothing else. If you want to discuss chess in general, or
this site, you might try the Kibitzer's Café.

Messages
posted by Chessgames members do not necessarily represent the views of Chessgames.com, its employees, or sponsors.